Bouw Will Walk-on

While this past weekend seemed fairly quiet on the recruiting front for North Carolina, the Tar Heels landed one of their better invited walk-ons when Kristian Bouw verbally committed to UNC.

"I did that Saturday," said Bouw. "I told them that afternoon that I'd be heading there. It was something that I had in the back of my head. I was pretty positive I would have my decision after that visit."

Bouw, a 5-foot-11 175-pound kicker from Bayboro (N.C.) Pamlico County, had a scholarship offer from Chowan College and a verbal offer from Michigan State. However, a desire to play in the ACC brought his decision down to two schools.

"I just basically wanted to play in the ACC," said Bouw. "It's close to home for family and relatives to come see me play. The decision really came down to UNC and UVa – both offered invited walk-ons. UVa out-of-state was $34,000 and UNC in-state was $12,000, so it was partly a money issues as well."

The Tar Heels plan to plug Bouw in at every aspect of kicking in some shape or form.

"Me coming in, I'll be a good backup being able to do kicking, punting, and kickoff duties," said Bouw. "Their punter was a senior, so I'll probably do punting before placekicking. Connor [Barth] had a bad year, if I don't get the job I'll be their every minute pushing pin for him to do better than he did last year."

Playing on a young 6-7 team, Bouw's senior year placekicking statistics suffered. However, he received plenty of opportunities to punt averaging between 42-44 yards a punt, with a long of 68 yards.